SAS lua2022 Thinking or overthinking? The relationship between individuals' need for cognition and well-being

A meta-analytic project examining the relationship betwen need for cognition and well-bein

Lua V. Y. Q.'s Conference Posters

A collection of the posters I've presented at numerous international conferences

A Narrative Review of Screen Time and Wellbeing among Adolescents before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for the Future

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of many. In particular, during the height of the pandemic, many experienced lockdowns, which in turn increased screen time drastically. While the pandemic has been declared an endemic and most activities have been reinstated, there appears to still be elevated screen time among adolescents due to poor habits formed during the pandemic lockdowns. This paper explores the factors by which screen time affects well-being among adolescents and how the pandemic may have influenced some of these factors. For example, beyond having greater screen time, many adolescents have also reduced their physical activities and picked up poor sleeping habits. These findings highlight the importance of having integrated activity guidelines that go beyond limiting adolescents’ daily screen time. It is important to affirm that beyond ensuring that adolescents limit their daily screen time, they are also meeting physical activity and sleep guidelines so that they achieve a holistic sense of wellbeing

Negative work-to-family spillover stress and heightened cardiovascular risk biomarkers in midlife and older adults

Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) Academic Research Fund Tier

Does bedtime music listening improve subjective sleep quality and next-morning well-being in young adults? A randomized cross-over trial

Previous research has found that young adults exhibit patterns of poor sleep, and that poor sleep is associated with a host of negative psychological consequences. One potential intervention to improve sleep quality is listening to music at bedtime. While there exist previous works investigating the efficacy of listening to music as a form of sleep aid, these works have been hindered by statistically weak designs, a lack of systematic investigation of critical characteristics of music which may affect its efficacy, and limited generalizability. In light of the limitations in the existing literature, a 15-day randomized cross-over trial was carried out with 62 young adults. Participants completed five nights of bedtime listening to each condition (happy music vs. sad music vs. pink noise, which acted as an active control condition) over three weeks. Upon awakening each morning, participants rated their subjective sleep quality, current stress, positive and negative affective states, and current life satisfaction. Frequentist and Bayesian multilevel modeling revealed that happy and sad music was both beneficial for subjective sleep quality and next-morning well-being, compared to the pink noise condition; potential nuances are discussed. The current study bears potential practical applications for healthcare professionals and lay individuals

Does Bedtime Music Listening Improve Subjective Sleep Quality and Next-morning Well-being in Young Adults? a Randomized Cross-over Trial

Previous research has found that young adults exhibit patterns of poor sleep and that poor sleep is associated with a host of negative psychological consequences. One potential intervention to improve sleep quality is listening to music at bedtime. Although there exist previous works investigating the efficacy of listening to music as a form of sleep aid, these works have been hindered by statistically weak designs, a lack of systematic investigation of critical characteristics of music that may affect its efficacy, and limited generalizability. In light of the limitations in the existing literature, a 15-day randomized cross-over trial was carried out with 62 young adults. Participants completed 5 nights of bedtime listening in each condition (happy music vs. sad music vs. pink noise, which acted as an active control condition) over 3 weeks. Upon awakening each morning, participants rated their subjective sleep quality, current stress, positive and negative affective states, and current life satisfaction. Frequentist and Bayesian multilevel modeling revealed that happy and sad music were both beneficial for subjective sleep quality and next-morning well-being, compared with the pink noise condition; potential nuances are discussed. The current study bears potential practical applications for health-care professionals and lay individuals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved

Dispositional gratitude, health-related factors, and lipid profiles in midlife: A biomarker study

Dispositional gratitude has emerged in the literature to be associated with many health benefits in measures ranging from self-reported health to biomarkers of cardiovascular risk. However, little is known about the link between dispositional gratitude and lipid profiles. Drawing from the Gratitude and Self-improvement Model that grateful individuals are more likely to strive for actual self-improvement such as engaging in healthy lifestyles, we investigated the relation between dispositional gratitude and serum lipid levels. Participants consisted of 1800 adults from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) 2: Biomarker Project (N = 1054) and MIDUS Refresher: Biomarker Project (N = 746). Serum lipid profiles were measured through fasting blood samples. After controlling for demographics, use of antihyperlipidemic mediation, and personality traits, we found that higher dispositional gratitude was associated with lower triglyceride levels. Results also revealed that healthy diets and lower BMI partially mediated the gratitude-triglyceride association. However, some variations in the analytic method may influence the associations between gratitude and triglycerides levels. Our findings provide preliminary evidence suggesting dispositional gratitude as a promising psychological factor that is associated with a healthier lipid profile